Jeff Tarango on arvau

Wikipedia / Jeff Tarango

Jeffrey Gail Tarango (born November 20, 1968) is a retired American tennis player. He was a top-ten doubles player and a runner-up at the 1999 French Open men's doubles tournament. He is now the Director of Tennis at the Jack Kramer Club, which is just south of Los Angeles. In 2018, he was the tournament director of a $30,000 men's California championships.

Tarango now resides in Manhattan Beach, California with his wife and children. He is married to Jessica Balgrosky, and they have five children (Nina Rose, Katherine, Jackson, Ace, and Jesse).

Career

Pro tour

Tarango turned professional in 1989 after completing his junior year at Stanford University, where he won two NCAA team titles. During his career, he won two top-level singles titles and 14 doubles titles. Tarango reached two Super 9 quarterfinals, Rome in 1995 and Miami in 1998. His career-high world rankings were No. 42 in singles and No. 10 in doubles. He was runner-up in the men's doubles at the 1999 French Open, partnering with Goran Ivanišević.

Wimbledon 1995 default

In the third round of the 1995 Wimbledon Championships, trailing 6–7, 1–3 to Alexander Mronz, Tarango became infuriated with French umpire Bruno Rebeuh, who had ruled against Tarango several times. During the match, when preparing to serve, the crowd heckled Tarango and he responded "Oh, shut up!" Rebeuh immediately issued a code violation to Tarango on the grounds of audible obscenity. Tarango protested this violation, called for the tournament referee, and asked for Rebeuh to be removed. Tarango was instructed to continue to play. He then accused Rebeuh of being "one of the most corrupt officials in the game" – to this Rebeuh gave Tarango another code violation, this time for verbal abuse. Tarango took umbrage, packed his rackets and stormed off the court. To add to the controversy, Tarango's wife at the time then slapped Rebeuh in the face.

Tarango was fined US$65,500, suspended for three weeks, and banned from two Grand Slam tournaments by the ATP and ITF, though the fine was later reduced to US$28,256 after he apologized to Rebeuh.

Tarango was also the beneficiary of a default in the men's doubles tournament earlier at the same championship. He and partner Henrik Holm were at two sets to one down against the team of Jeremy Bates and Tim Henman when Henman angrily smashed a ball that inadvertently hit ball girl Caroline Hall, resulting in their disqualification. Coincidentally, Hall was also a ball girl in Tarango's match against Mronz.

After retirement

Tarango retired from the main tour in 2003 and now devotes his time to coaching as well as broadcasting for BBC, ESPN, Tennis Channel, Fox Sports and DirecTV. He has been a member of the Davis Cup Committee for six years within the USTA. He still makes occasional appearances at professional events, including the 2008 USA F21 Futures event in Milwaukee.

In his 2009 autobiography Open, Andre Agassi claimed that Tarango cheated in a juniors tournament in 1977 to hand Agassi his first competitive loss. During the final set tiebreaker, Tarango purposely mis-called a ball that had landed several feet in: "Players act as their own linesman… Tarango has decided he'd rather do this than lose and he knows there's nothing anyone can do about it. He raises his hand in victory. Now I start to cry." In an earlier interview, Tarango instead claimed that Agassi had been overruled by an umpire on match point.

Tarango coached several players after retirement, including Younes El Aynaoui, Andrei Medvedev, Maria Sharapova, and Vince Spadea.

ATP career finals

Singles: 6 (2 titles, 4 runner-ups)

Legend
Grand Slam Tournaments (0–0)
ATP World Tour Finals (0–0)
ATP World Tour Masters 1000 (0–0)
ATP World Tour 500 Series (0–0)
ATP World Tour 250 Series (2–4)
Finals by surface
Hard (2–3)
Clay (0–1)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–0)
Finals by setting
Outdoors (2–3)
Indoors (0–1)
Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Loss	0–1	Aug 1988	Livingston, United States	Grand Prix	Hard	Andre Agassi	2–6, 4–6
Loss	0–2	Apr 1991	Seoul, South Korea	World Series	Hard	Patrick Baur	4–6, 6–1, 6–7
Win	1–2	Jan 1992	Wellington, New Zealand	World Series	Hard	Alexander Volkov	6–1, 6–0, 6–3
Win	2–2	Oct 1992	Tel Aviv, Israel	World Series	Hard	Stéphane Simian	4–6, 6–3, 6–4
Loss	2–3	Sep 1994	Bordeaux, France	World Series	Hard	Wayne Ferreira	0–6, 5–7
Loss	2–4	Aug 1999	Umag, Croatia	World Series	Clay	Magnus Norman	2–6, 4–6

Doubles: 25 (14 titles, 11 runners-up)

Legend
Grand Slam tournaments (0–1)
ATP World Tour Finals (0–0)
ATP Masters Series (0–1)
ATP Championship Series (2–2)
ATP World Series (12–7)
Finals by surface
Hard (6–6)
Clay (6–4)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (2–1)
Finals by setting
Outdoor (10–9)
Indoor (4–2)
Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	Jun 1994	St. Polten, Austria	World Series	Clay	Adam Malik	Vojtěch Flégl Andrew Florent	6–3, 1–6, 4–6
Win	1–1	Apr 1995	Seoul, South Korea	World Series	Hard	Sébastien Lareau	Andrew Florent Joshua Eagle	6–3, 6–2
Win	2–1	Jul 1995	Washington, United States	Championship Series	Hard	Olivier Delaître	Petr Korda Cyril Suk	4–6, 6–3, 6–2
Win	3–1	Sep 1995	Bucharest, Romania	World Series	Clay	Mark Keil	Daniel Vacek Cyril Suk	6–4, 7–6
Win	4–1	Jul 1996	Båstad, Sweden	World Series	Clay	David Ekerot	Joshua Eagle Peter Nyborg	6–4, 3–6, 6–4
Win	5–1	Sep 1996	Bucharest, Romania	World Series	Clay	David Ekerot	David Adams Menno Oosting	7–6, 7–6
Loss	5–2	Jan 1998	Auckland, New Zealand	World Series	Hard	Tom Nijssen	Patrick Galbraith Brett Steven	4–6, 2–6
Loss	5–3	Aug 1998	Los Angeles, United States	World Series	Hard	Daniel Vacek	Patrick Rafter Sandon Stolle	4–6, 4–6
Win	6–3	Nov 1998	Moscow, Russia	World Series	Carpet	Jared Palmer	Daniel Vacek Yevgeny Kafelnikov	6–4, 6–7, 6–3
Win	7–3	Jan 1999	Auckland, New Zealand	World Series	Hard	Daniel Vacek	Jiří Novák David Rikl	7–5, 7–5
Win	8–3	Feb 1999	St. Petersburg, Russia	World Series	Carpet	Daniel Vacek	Andrei Pavel Menno Oosting	3–6, 6–3, 7–5
Win	9–3	Apr 1999	Tokyo, Japan	Championship Series	Hard	Daniel Vacek	Brian Macphie Wayne Black	4–3 ret.
Loss	9–4	Jun 1999	French Open, France	Grand Slam	Clay	Goran Ivanišević	Mahesh Bhupathi Leander Paes	2–6, 5–7
Win	10–4	Jul 1999	Båstad, Sweden	World Series	Clay	David Adams	Mikael Tillström Nicklas Kulti	7–6, 6–4
Win	11–4	Sep 1999	Bournemouth, United Kingdom	World Series	Clay	David Adams	Michael Kohlmann Nicklas Kulti	6–3, 6–7, 7–6
Win	12–4	Oct 1999	Toulouse, France	World Series	Hard	Olivier Delaître	David Adams John-Laffnie de Jager	3–6, 7–6, 6–4
Loss	12–5	Jan 2000	Auckland, New Zealand	World Series	Hard	Olivier Delaître	Ellis Ferreira Rick Leach	5–7, 4–6
Loss	12–6	Oct 2000	Tokyo, Japan	Championship Series	Hard	Michael Hill	Mahesh Bhupathi Leander Paes	4–6, 7–6(7–1), 3–6
Win	13–6	Nov 2000	Brighton, United Kingdom	World Series	Hard	Michael Hill	Paul Goldstein Jim Thomas	6–3, 7–5
Loss	13–7	Feb 2001	Marseilles, France	World Series	Hard	Michael Hill	Julien Boutter Fabrice Santoro	6–7(7–9), 5–7
Win	14–7	Apr 2001	Casablanca, Morocco	World Series	Clay	Michael Hill	Pablo Albano David Macpherson	7–6(7–2), 6–3
Loss	14–8	Jul 2001	Gstaad, Switzerland	World Series	Clay	Michael Hill	Roger Federer Marat Safin	1–0 ret.
Loss	14–9	Jul 2001	Stuttgart, Germany	Championship Series	Clay	Michael Hill	Guillermo Cañas Rainer Schüttler	6–4, 6–7(1–7), 4–6
Loss	14–10	Oct 2001	Moscow, Russia	International Series	Carpet	Mahesh Bhupathi	Max Mirnyi Sandon Stolle	3–6, 0–6
Loss	14–11	Oct 2001	Stuttgart, Germany	Masters Series	Hard	Ellis Ferreira	Max Mirnyi Sandon Stolle	6–7(1–7), 6–7(4–7)

ATP Challenger and ITF Futures finals

Singles: 6 (3–3)

Legend
ATP Challenger (3–3)
ITF Futures (0–0)
Finals by surface
Hard (0–3)
Clay (3–0)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–0)
Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Opponent	Score
Win	1–0	Furth, Germany	Challenger	Clay	Felipe Rivera	6–0, 6–0
Loss	1–1	Azores, Portugal	Challenger	Hard	Rodolphe Gilbert	1–6, 7–5, 4–6
Loss	1–2	Reunion, Reunion Island	Challenger	Hard	Ronald Agénor	3–6, 4–6
Loss	1–3	Nantes, France	Challenger	Hard	Guillaume Raoux	2–6, 5–7
Win	2–3	Poznań, Poland	Challenger	Clay	David Rikl	7–5, 6–3
Win	3–3	Newcastle, United Kingdom	Challenger	Clay	Ronald Agénor	3–6, 6–0, 7–6

Doubles: 7 (4–3)

Legend
ATP Challenger (3–3)
ITF Futures (1–0)
Finals by surface
Hard (2–2)
Clay (2–1)
Grass (0–0)
Carpet (0–0)
Result	W–L	Date	Tournament	Tier	Surface	Partner	Opponents	Score
Loss	0–1	Azores, Portugal	Challenger	Hard	Chris Bailey	Bryan Shelton Roger Smith	4–6, 4–6
Win	1–1	Réunion, Réunion Island	Challenger	Hard	Jonathan Canter	Mark Kaplan Lan Bale	6–4, 3–6, 7–5
Loss	1–2	Košice, Slovakia	Challenger	Clay	Adrian Voinea	Jiří Novák David Rikl	6–7, 2–6
Win	2–2	Košice, Slovakia	Challenger	Clay	Olivier Delaître	Jan Kodeš Jr. Petr Pála	7–6, 6–3
Win	3–2	Braunschweig, Germany	Challenger	Clay	Jens Knippschild	Álex López Morón Albert Portas	6–2, 6–2
Loss	3–3	Andrezieux, France	Challenger	Hard	Stephen Huss	David Škoch Lovro Zovko	6–7(4–7), 6–0, 3–6
Win	4–3	USA F21, Milwaukee	Futures	Hard	Edward Kelly	Raven Klaasen Ryan Young	6–3, 3–6. [11–9]